How dangerous is VASpider?

Rinel

Sort of a weird thread, I realize. I keep bumping into VASpider online (mostly on bluesky and tumblr), and he seems decent enough at first glance.

I’m well aware of how much has been written about his capacity to seem decent at first glance. So I’m writing said sort of weird thread to ask a question. One of my friends is friendly with Spider, and what I’ve seen of Spider’s reputation on here ranges pretty significantly (all negative, mind, but with a range of severity). Should I be worried for my friend? Or is it not much of an issue if he’s mostly reblogging posts and occasionally interacting with Spider?

Roz

I didn’t run in his game circles when he was most active in the community, so can’t speak to anything directly. But I know there’s a pair of threads about him, and those might have informative bits for you.

Rinel

@Roz

Thanks. Deeply appreciated.

ETA: That, uh… that first link is a french board game.

Testament

Goddamn that’s an old MUSB thread. It’s seven years old?

Oh my god.

Roz

@Rinel said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

ETA: That, uh… that first link is a french board game.

lmao omg. fixed.

helvetica

@Roz That puzzle didn’t look very hard!

Testament

I was really hoping that the board game was some kind of meta commentary on Spider that I wasn’t aware of.

Roz

@helvetica said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

@Roz That puzzle didn’t look very hard!

My character is Int 1 okay!!!

Pavel

@Rinel said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

Should I be worried for my friend? Or is it not much of an issue if he’s mostly reblogging posts and occasionally interacting with Spider?

Mild concern, of the mostest mild variety. Like a jalapeño’s Scoville level of concern.

Your friend should probably treat them as one would any stranger on the internet: They’re not your friend, don’t give them money, and think twice about joining any club they invite you to.

Third Eye

@Testament said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

Goddamn that’s an old MUSB thread. It’s seven years old?

Oh my god.

I get very ‘time is a flat circle’ about this stuff. The last WORA was something like 10 years ago? Maybe more at this point?

We’re all old.

Pavel

@Third-Eye said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

The last WORA was something like 10 years ago? Maybe more at this point?

I don’t remember the most recent URL, but the netlosers.com variant on the wayback machine says 2006-2013.

Aria

Fun Fact: I was accidentally locked in Spider’s bathroom once. Like, IRL.

And with that fun fact in mind, and having met them several times, I do not think they’re dangerous. At all.

I do think they’re generally very active, creative, and enthusiastic on games… in that special way that becomes toxic as fuck when that someone also lacks fundamental social skills or the ability to consider the consequences that their actions have on the very real human beings on the end of a keyboard. And I have seen them do this on games multiple times, including being one of the staffers on the receiving end of “having to sort out this bullshit again” way back on Haunted Memories.

So not dangerous in my personal experience, but also do not recommend. Other people’s mileage may vary.

SpaceKhomeini

A friend of mine sent me a vaspider tumblr meme last year. Said friend had never mu*d ever.

I laughed until I cried because this world is too fucking weird,

Pavel

@Aria It really depends on how one defines dangerous.

In terms of our little inconsequential hobby and our enjoyment thereof? Dangerous.
So it’s entirely possible they could also be similarly dangerous in other online areas of niche interest, if they apply the same mentality to it.

RL? Probably not a problem at all.

Aria

@Pavel Yeah, like I said, other people’s mileage will likely vary. I would not want them on a game that I played on, just having seen what the result of that is and – to your point – think it would ruin a lot of the enjoyment for a lot of people.

But when I think of ‘dangerous’ in an online space, I’m generally not thinking ‘dangerous to fun’. I’m thinking… is this person a stalker? A doxer? A sex pest? It’s the difference between a person being a risk to someone else’s safety in one form or another versus just being an asshole.

Pavel

It’s also entirely possible they’ve changed and don’t exhibit the same behaviours as they used to.

Though I didn’t mean to reduce my point to ‘dangerous to fun.’ They were a consummate manipulator who wielded their “enthusiasm” and “helpfulness” like a cudgel to get their way without caring about the capacity to cause actual damage to people. So, while not a stalker or a sex pest, they were predatory in their way, and often more dangerous because they were appreciated.

Rinel

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate it! You hear so many horror stories about Spider and McGuire that they sound very scary to a person who has never interacted with them.

spiriferida

@Rinel

Having not been around when either was in MU but having come across them in their other contexts, my impression has always been like they’re bad exes to the community - they’re probably fine where they are now but the MU community will always remember them through that particular interaction. And at this point both are just either moved on from it or have come back under different handles and aren’t making waves.

Tributary

Spider showed up on Darkwater years ago and wanted to keep a low profile due to their reputation. I can change, I have changed, they said. @Cobalt said, fine, but you have to actually play in a cooperative way, and we’re not going to cover who you are for you. (Cobalt might remember this story better than I; it was long ago and far away - like a decade or more now.)

Of course, it didn’t last. I can’t recall if someone figured them out or if they were just not being a good collaborator and thus making people suspect. We as staff told players that we understood their concerns and were monitoring things to make sure that Spider was in compliance with our expectations that Spider themself had agreed to. At that point, I gave Spider their one and only warning.

I called Spider in and said, you said you’d be cooperative and share plots, but you’re engaging in manipulative behaviors. A lie of omission is still a lie, and people think your behavior is shady. What’s more, I think your behavior is shady, and if you keep it up, I’m going to ask you to leave my game for the good of others. Your presence here is a kindness because Cobalt is a pushover, but I am not, so clean up your act or get gone. And Spider insisted that they’d followed the rules to the letter and that people were reading too much into it all and it was all just perception. I was like, you have to follow the spirit of the law and perception is important. Perception informs reality, and as such, you’ve got to convince my players that you’re following the rules and playing with them cooperatively, not me.

And that is where we largely parted ways with Spider. They realized that I meant it about convincing the other players that they were working with them and they realized that I was not sympathetic to them but to the playerbase as a whole. And they left without any fanfare, and it was really a non-incident in the end.

So while I would say that Spider is not dangerous, and Spider is self-aware enough to know when they’re not wanted, Spider did not manage to convince me that they could play well with others on a MU. Old habits die hard, but outside of a MU experience, Spider is probably a nice person.

Aria

@Tributary said in How dangerous is VASpider?:

I called Spider in and said, you said you’d be cooperative and share plots, but you’re engaging in manipulative behaviors. A lie of omission is still a lie, and people think your behavior is shady. What’s more, I think your behavior is shady, and if you keep it up, I’m going to ask you to leave my game for the good of others. Your presence here is a kindness because Cobalt is a pushover, but I am not, so clean up your act or get gone. And Spider insisted that they’d followed the rules to the letter and that people were reading too much into it all and it was all just perception. I was like, you have to follow the spirit of the law and perception is important. Perception informs reality, and as such, you’ve got to convince my players that you’re following the rules and playing with them cooperatively, not me.

I had a very similar conversation with them about their behavior on Haunted Memories. Their response was to try to convince me that I ought to put them on a PIP with clear guidelines and regular check-ins and coaching sessions to ensure their behavior was in compliance and meeting expectations, because that’s what they would have to do with an underperforming employee at work.

sigh

There are definitely people who will use “I am following the rules exactly as they’re laid out!” as both a hammer and a shield if they are allowed to. Spider is one of them.